HAUNTED ANGEL

In midst of all the chaos came a lone, despairing cry.
Around her, all grew silent as they saw her weeping eye.
Anguish wrote upon the face she turned up to the sky.
Words she sang empaled them on a knife-edged lullaby

 Take me up from shadowed earth of jaded revelry.
How can I remain here, Lord, too harsh a place for me,
no gentle haven made to soothe a soul in agony,
no loving arms to hold me tight, set my spirit free?

 About me there is madness, people rushing to and fro
taking and forsaking in their drive to banish woe.
Sadness and despair lie deep beneath a melting snow
a frantic race to keep the fear from panicked overflow.

  And nothing that I seem to do to help them ease the pain,
can stem the hurt or clean again a soul ravaged with stain.
Impotent in my care for them and stabbed with each refrain
as writhing souls slip through my heart, lost hope in every grain.

  Within my heart lay precious love, a gift for my matched soul,
tied in silken cords of care that muses oft extol,
surrendered free in homage deep to comfort and console,
now wrapped in tattered bandages, painted blackest coal.

Pleading, "Lord, there's need in me to fill their emptiness
to stop the pain and hurt they feel in all their loneliness.
Give me Lord the power to heal their heart filled hopelessness.
Take me Lord beyond this place so I may give us rest."

  She waits in tortured solitude, an angel to become,
the only way to fill her need to help each hurt filled one,
a tear unchecked falls quietly for all the love begun,
unfinished in pained agony much as her own has done.

And in the night, she whispers soft to self that in her cries,
believe in him, in dreams he gave, though tarnished now love lies,
soon you'll give without demand a gift he won't deny,
an angel, you will cradle him and every heart that sighs.©

(c) by L.J. Taylor & R. A. Curl 10-19-99